McMurtry May is upon us

Fran Magazine: Issue #145

Apr 30, 2025

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McMurtry May is nigh

I intended to write sooner about the plan and general expectations for this year’s May book club, but then two things happened:

I couldn’t find a physical copy of Lonesome Dove at any bookstores I went to.
It’s a weird May, layout of dates-wise.

Working backwards between those two items, I usually anticipate five Mondays in May, or at least five solid weeks of discussion. This year, May snuck up on me a little. With a book of such significant size and a month of such significant structural weirdness, I suspect that McMurtry May’s final discussion will occur on June 2nd. No stress on my end, and hopefully no stress on your end either.

For the last two bookclubs, I’ve had the fortune of already owning the book in question. This time, I spent approximately six weeks saying I was going to go pick up a copy of Lonesome Dove when I was out and about, and lo and behold, I procrastinated. This past week, I made a concerted effort to drop by some bookstores I love to grab a copy, only to find that every single one was without a copy of Lonesome Dove. The Last Picture Show? Had it. Comanche Moon? Of course. Lonesome Dove? No way.

“Whenever the weather goes up above 70 degrees, we sell out of that one,” the clerk at McNally Jackson told me with a shrug.

Anyway: I have an ebook, which is how I’ve started reading about half of what I read these days anyway. I generally find them easier to annotate, which will be good to pull out passages and keep track of every time the word “bandit” is used (I’m told quite a lot!).

Maybe this is your first time doing the Fran Magazine May book club, so I’ll run through a few basics to keep you in the loop on what to expect this month (and to hold myself accountable to this).

What are we reading?

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry, of course!

That book is so long!

Yes — well, so was Middlemarch. We had a brief reprieve with Gormenghast last year, but what that novel lacked in pages it made up for in dense language.

How much of Lonesome Dove am I supposed to read every week?

If I do the math right, about 230 pages. I think for this first week — because it’s a partial week — we’ll stop after Chapter 15 which is on Page 176 in my copy. I know: that’s still a lot of pages, and we’ll have to make up for that deficit over Memorial Day weekend. That said, basically everyone I’ve spoken to about the book ensures that it reads quite quickly. Maybe not 230 pages a week quickly, but hopefully this is the type of novel that you don’t want to put down.

Do I need a specific copy?

No, but I was told that prefaced editions of Lonesome Dove have some spoilers in the said preface written by McMurtry himself. So you can read it at your own discretion but it won’t come up here. I’ve been burned way too many times with spoilers in prefaces/introductions to read them before the novel in question.1 Just read it after!!!

What happens each Monday?

I’ll write a bit about the passage we just read — a loose plot breakdown, maybe, or hone in on a particular element of craft or a character I’m really into. Feel free to jump into the comments and mention anything you’ve found interesting or moving or funny. Sometimes people just share notable sentences or paragraphs and say, “Check this out.” It’s all pretty low stakes!

Will there be spoilers in the Monday posts?

Probably yes. You’re welcome to jump in late, but I can’t guarantee the conversation will still be going.

Did Phil make a celebratory banner for this year’s book club?

YOU BETCHA.

What’s the reading schedule look like?

Here is what I am thinking:

Weekish of April 30/May 1-5th: Chapters 1-15
Week of May 5-12th: Chapters 16-40
Week of May 12-19th: Chapters 41-67
Week of May 19-27th2: Chapters 68-91
Week of May 27-June 2nd: Chapter 92-end

Future weeks may change depending on if everyone yells at me that it’s all too much or too little. It is my general and confident assumption that people are going to read ahead because the book is so good!

Catcher in the Raw – Texas Monthly — dying at this sweatshirt………. to say nothing of the kitten

Questions? Comments? General excitement or words of wisdom for your fellow reading peers? Excited to kick this off officially next week. One of the highlights of my year every year!!

Fran Magazine